On starting the day: Good faith or a dancer's lost limb?

I’ve often wondered about how I start my days. Today was pretty typical.

I put the water on for the coffee then retrieved the newspapers from the stoop. I’m an old-fashioned guy, but I could have easily clicked in to the computer. Later I did just that.

As usual, the headlines set the tone for my Wheaties and Grapenuts.

“Employers’ health care maze” read the Oregonian’s main headline.

Another read, ambiguously, “Vatican reveals its procedures for abuse.”

The front of the New York Times offered:

“Civilians Killed as U.S. Troops Hit Afghan Bus”

“Leg Lost, Dancer Is Caught Between Caregivers.”

All this before my first cup of coffee. Bitter stuff.

It took Thomas Jefferson to bring me around.

Today is Jefferson’s birthday, a matter of singular note in Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac. The Almanac’s extended entry quoted Jefferson, writing John Adams, on the very topic of how to start my day.

"I have given up newspapers in exchange for Tacitus (“A desire to resist oppression is implanted in the nature of man”) and Thucydides (“Justice will not come to Athens until those who are not injured are as indignant as those who are injured”), for Newton and Euclid; and I find myself much the happier."

As substitutes for The Times and The Oregonian, I’ve considered Marcus Aurelius and Lao Tzu, among others.

Imagine starting the day with one of these:

Here’s Aurelius: “Whenever you notice someone else going astray, immediately turn and examine how you yourself have gone astray” or “For each thing you do, stop and ask yourself if death is to be feared because it deprives you of this.”

Try Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching: “Those who are of good faith I have faith in. Those who are lacking in good faith I also have faith in. In so doing I gain in good faith.” Or “Much speech leads inevitably to silence. Better to hold fast to the void.”

We can be grateful that Jefferson, born on this day in 1743, chose to live at great distance from “Leg Lost, Dancer Is Caught Between Caregivers.”

We should be equally grateful for following his path.

Spirits for Spirits

The George Durant’s Listening Heart Book Store in Hillsdale was a mini-institution for those of us who tried to give George enough business to keep him and the little shop afloat.

I even volunteered behind the counter when George, a kind and earnest man, was called away to dentist or doctor. The foot traffic was thin but fervent, consisting of true believers of one kind or another.

The place, a little literary sanctuary, was packed with spiritual books from all religions, but the store itself was virtually unnoticeable from busy SW Capitol Highway. Its spiritual tomes went undiscovered by the commuters rushing by. George passed much of his time thumbing through book catalogs and waiting for customers who never walked through the door.

Nonetheless, those of us who did drop by found the conversation lively and even uplifting. George, a seeker himself, loved wrestling with questions of the spirit. But he had no business plan to speak of. He kept the place alive on a wish and a prayer until he had no choice but to shut the doors four or five years ago.

He now sells suits at the Washington Square Macy’s. He seems a happier and certainly a more financially secure man.

I thought of him and Listening Heart today as I dropped by the first day of business for Korkage, a spiffy little wine shop opened by Alissa Larrance. Something was oddly familiar about the place, and then it struck me that Alissa had George’s old space. She’d transformed Listening Heart by knocking out the interior walls and lining the shop with mounted bottle bins. In place of Aquinas, the Bhagavad Gita and Lao Tsu were chardonnays, Merlots and Chiantis.

Time had moved on, spirits replacing spirits, as they are wont to do.

Three

Three from "The Essence of Tao," compiled by Maggie Pinkney.
The Five Mile Press


The world is won by those who let go!

Lao Tzu



The things that are really for thee,
Gravitate to thee.

Ralph Waldo Emerson



Happiness is a butterfly which, when pursued, Is always beyond our grasp, But which, if you sit down quietly, May alight upon you.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Remaindered Wisdom

Browsing at Borders Books the other day I saw a remaindered copy of a book titled "The Essence of Tao." It's mostly a compendium of quotes from the Tao Te Ching and eclectic sources that relate to the wisdom of the Tao.

Usually each page is devoted to a brief quotation so that the quotes look out on the reader in pairs. The pairings are carefully selected (by Maggie Pinkney) and lend new meaning to the halves. The effect of combining the wisdom of disparate sources is stunning.

But the book at Borders was shop worn and the last copy, so I didn't buy it for $4.99. I returned home to search for it on the web.

No luck. (NB: There is another well known book with the same title.)

The book I sought was published by The Five Mile Press, which is located in Australia. Ordering a new book from the publisher looked prohibitively expensive.

So, finding myself downtown again last week, I dropped by Borders again. "The Essence of Tao" was still there so I bought it.

I may return to it here from time to time.

This sample from a two-page spread shows why:

If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them.

But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?

— Alexander Solzhenitsyn


I have learned silence from the talkative;
tolerance from the intolerant,
and kindness from the unkind;
yet, strange,
I am ungrateful to those teachers.

— Kahlil Gibran